After 14 years as the Guardian’s wine critic, Fiona Beckett is stashing her spittoon for a different sort of flight. What are her final tips?

Soave goes with just about everything, which makes it great for summer dining, picnics and barbecues

Wine choices are often as much a question of mood as food

A gloriously vibrant gramiller should be just the ticket for when you’re cooking over coals, though when it comes to rosé, darker, stronger styles work best

The most fun way to discover a new English wine – of which there are now many – is to visit the producers themselves, but here’s a selection to discover online

The country’s wines are consistently good, particularly the whites – including some seriously good riesling

Almost half of Brazil’s wine production is sparkling wine, but the country’s producers also make full-bodied reds and so called winter wine

Valencia might be famous for its sweet wines, but the lesser known bottles from the region are well worth a try

The usual suspects from Provence, Rhône and Languedoc flex their muscles this year, as do tempranillos and bottles from Corsica and Greece. As ever, though, do look for a recent vintage …

If Japanese food is all the rage, why isn’t sake? After all, it is an appealing and surprisingly versatile drink

Who is buying the more obscure wines, and where can you get them?

Value for money is harder to find these days, but here are a few pointers

Contrary to popular belief, there are some wines – and even one or two reds – that you can pair with this superstar spring vegetable

They’re both made of agave, but is that where the similarity ends?

Italians tend to serve fresher, more restrained and lower-abv whites with their food, not least so as not to overpower it

Milder dishes tend to beckon cool, crisp sauvignon blancs, while spicier dishes call for more aromatic and sweeter wines

Spring forward into a light reds – look for grapes such as cinsault, gamay, and pinot noir or bardolino

The big supermarkets roll out the multibuy deals around Easter time, but if you can remember to support your local indie, too

Ireland may not the first place you’d think of as a wine-growing nation, but the country’s winemakers are making a mark all around the world

New styles of red rioja offer more fruity, less aggressively oaky notes, while a new breed of floral whites are also hitting the market – but neither comes especially cheaply